UCaaS or CCaaS – What’s the Difference?

There are a lot of cloud communications tools on the market that can help your business increase productivity while boosting resilience at the same time. Two of the big ones are UCaaS and CCaaS. Both can be invaluable for organizations adopting a remote or hybrid work model. However, as they offer different features and are designed to solve different problems, your business may or may not need to adopt the two of them. Can your business benefit from UCaaS or CCaaS? Here’s an overview of what each offers and the differences between the two.

How UCaaS and CCaaS Are Different?

UCaaS (unified communications as a service) is a cloud-based solution that unifies various communication tools into one platform. These tools include voice, video conferencing, chat, email, and file sharing. With this type of software, your teams can stay connected, collaborate, and communicate with other employees and customers whether they are in the office or at home. Because communications are integrated, work becomes more seamless for users. They don’t have to switch to a different app to change tools, and data are integrated. Unified communications is an essential tool for a work-from-wherever organization.

CCaaS (contact center as a service) is also a cloud-based communications solution that enables your contact center agents to take and receive calls from anywhere. It enables you to have a remote contact center team while ensuring the same level of security, call quality, and data tracking and reporting that an on-premises contact center platform might offer.

While both are designed to allow remote employees to communicate with customers, CCaaS is specifically intended for customer service call center communications. UCaaS is more of a foundational communications platform that can be used for all types of business communications – video conferencing, instant messaging, webinars, receiving and sending business calls, secure email, and more.

Does Your Business Need Unified Communications as a Service?

If your employees work off-site at all, UCaaS should be at the top of your list of technology solutions to consider.

Remote teams can stay productive, just like they would in the office, with UCaaS.
Your organization can allow employees to have a flexible work schedule; they have all the tools they need whether they are at home, in the office, or wherever.
Employees who travel to different locations while on the job can field calls, send emails, share files, launch video meetings, and more from their mobile devices.
UCaaS also offers peace of mind – as long as your cloud provider offers comprehensive security, including physical data center security, network and product security, and third-party audits, your employees can work with this technology worry-free.
For small to medium-sized businesses, UCaaS can also be an excellent fit because of cost savings. With a cloud phone system and predictable communications technology costs, your SMB can benefit from industry-leading technology without paying high prices.

Does Your Business Need a Contact Center as a Service?

Businesses that want to switch from an on-premises to a remote contact center can use CCaaS to handle all of their contact center technology needs. Even if you only have a small customer support team, CCaaS should be a top consideration for both inbound customer calls and outgoing communications.

Your contact center software can help to improve the customer experience. And with CCaaS, your organization has a flexible, cloud-based contact center platform that agents can use at any location.
With the right software, callers are routed to the appropriate agent automatically. This helps to cut down wait time and to optimize your agents’ time so they can better serve customers.
A good CCaaS will also feature Interactive Voice Response (IVR) technology. IVR is a great tool for improving the overall customer experience when customers call into your call center. It allows for self-serve options, call routing, and faster resolutions.
Another huge benefit of an advanced contact center solution is analytics and reporting. Your contact center operations can be better managed with key metrics, real-time dashboards, and customizable reporting features. With a cloud-based solution, your management team can oversee talk-time metrics, first call resolution, daily transfers, and more. They can then make scheduling and quality assurance decisions based on real-time data – and they can do it from wherever.

UCaaS and CCaaS Make Teams More Flexible, and More Effective

The bottom line is, with UCaaS and CCaaS, your organization has the tools it needs to adapt to disruption, empower employees, and thrive. As we learned during the pandemic, external events can force businesses to make changes fast to ensure continuity. With cloud-based communications, your business already has the platforms in place that give your teams the latitude to work from any location.

For SMBs, switching to UCaaS, CCaaS, or both can also be cost-effective. Because the software is hosted in secure, off-site servers, your company doesn’t have to invest in new hardware and more IT resources to manage the technology. You can purchase cloud phones and any necessary contact center accessories such as headsets, but the software is available on a subscription basis, is updated for you, and maintained in the cloud.

To learn more about how cloud-based unified communications and contact center software can empower your business, explore our report: Intermedia Unite and Intermedia Contact Center Integrations: Outstanding alone, even better together.